Approximately 80,000 Iraqi children are attending better schools in Iraq’s nine southern provinces because of Coalition reconstruction efforts.

Internet subscribers have risen from 5,000 before the war to 196,000 in September.

There were no commercial TV stations in Iraq before the war. Today there are 44.

There were no independent newspapers or magazines in Iraq before the war. Today there are more than 100.

There were no commercial radio stations in Iraq before the war. Today there are 72.

Iraqi judges have conducted 544 trials since October 2003.

In Ramadi, fliers have appeared that threaten and denounce the tactics of Islamic extremists. Some threaten to inform police of extremists’ identity and whereabouts.

More than 20 Operating Bases have been returned to the Iraqi Government.

Iraqis are expressing their freedom by providing information on terrorists. The number of tips has risen from 442 in February to 3,341 in August.

Driven by the purchase of TVs, appliances, fans, and air conditioners, electricity demand has risen as much as 60% since the war.

INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS UP TO SEPTEMBER 2005:

3,404 Public Schools

304 Water and Sewage Projects

257 Fire and Police Stations

149 Health Facilities

Total of 4,114 reconstruction projects completed with 921 ongoing

SECURITY

27 of 109 Forward Operating Bases (FOB) in Iraq have been turned over to the Iraqi Army or closed.

FOB Danger, near Tikrit, is scheduled to be turned over soon.

Iraqi units are being fully integrated into all major Coalition operations.

210,000 ISF are trained and equipped, 18,000 more than in September.

As of September, 120 Iraqi Police and Army battalions are in the fight. In addition to a fully independent battalion:

80 battalions are able to fight alongside Coalition troops.

36 battalions generally able to conduct independent operations.

SNAPSHOT: Two brigades of the Iraqi 6th Division have their own battle space in Baghdad, including Haifa Street, once a haven for insurgents.

As of September, one division, 5 brigades, and 36 battalions currently have the lead in their areas in Iraq. This summer, only one division and 11 battalions had the lead.

IRAQI ARMY UNITS IN COMBAT

*includes combat support/ service units

DEMOCRACY

October 15th was a historic day for democracy in Iraq and a bad day for terrorists.

Millions of Iraqis turned out to vote, embracing the democratic process. Iraq now has a constitution.

On the day of the referendum, there were no suicide bombings, and attacks on polling stations were down from 108 in January to 19 in October.

60% of registered voters took part in the referendum.

Significantly higher turnout in Sunni areas is a further indication that Sunnis are joining the political process.

IRAQIS TAKING ACTION

A significant factor enabling progress against the insurgency is the dramatic increase in intelligence tips received from the population in the past several months, indicative of increasing popular rejection of the insurgents.

- October, 2005 Report to Congress

SINCE JULY….

SINCE JULY’S IRAQ METRICS REPORT TO CONGRESS….

More than 22 additional battalions have been added to the Iraqi Security Forces.

More than 5,500 Iraq Police Service personnel have been trained and equipped.

More than 2,000 Special Police Commanders have been trained and equipped, placing the program well ahead of projections.

The Mechanized Police reached its target force level of 1,200.

1,200 additional Public Order Police have been trained and equipped.

The Emergency Response Unit has conducted nightly operations in Mosul and Baghdad. Its forces have increased by 50%.

The Ministry of Defense forces have received approximately 10,000 automatic rifles, 1,800 pistols, 2,700 machine guns, and 750 vehicles from the Coalition.

The Ministry of Interior forces have received approximately 21,000 AK-47s, 15,000 pistols, 1,700 machine guns, and 1,900 vehicles from the Coalition.

OPERATION STEEL CURTAIN

Operation Steel Curtain is a joint Coalition / Iraqi operation to restore Iraqi control of the Iraq-Syria border.

To date, the operation has resulted in:

100 weapons caches being found and cleared.

1,000 men suspected of insurgent activities have been detained.

2,500 Coalition Forces and 1,000 Iraqi forces are acting to secure the cities of Husaybah and Karabilah as part of Steel Curtain.

Since the operation began, 79 mines and IEDs have been discovered.

33 weapons caches have been found and destroyed in Husaybah and Karbilah.

"

all of which comes from same lying bastards who got us in and now want to keep us in. funny how insurgents not seem to "get it," eh?

julie amazing that we not yet begin restoration of hanging gardens of babylon. apparently that next week.

even bush 0 admit he screwed up, so you know it REALLY bad. hell, ANYONE with brain knew all this. same idiot, third or fourth chance. at least this better than shooting and bombing innocent iraqis.

Bush Shifts Priorities in Rebuilding Iraq to Smaller Projects

By DAVID E. SANGER and JAMES GLANZNew York Times

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - President Bush said Wednesday that the strategy for rebuilding Iraq was shifting to smaller, more visible projects, while he conceded that the American effort to rebuild Iraq had been ridden with early mistakes.

"Reconstruction has not always gone as well as we had hoped," Mr. Bush said, in an admission that paralleled his concession last week, in the first of four speeches laying out his Iraq strategy, that the United States had not properly armed and trained Iraqis to resist insurgents.

But he argued that the shift in rebuilding was already drawing Iraqis away from the insurgency plaguing the country. He cited, at length, examples from the rebuilding of Najaf and Mosul, two cities that have been the site of repeated battles and bombings, and that he contended are now coming to life.

Mr. Bush's admission was notable because the administration's critics - and Iraqis themselves - have long argued that the early focus on huge electricity, water and fuel projects was misguided, as was the overreliance on huge American conglomerates to run the programs, a strategy that Mr. Bush indicated was ending.

Within the administration, some officials acknowledged that the White House had ignored specific warnings about these flaws before the invasion in March 2003. Mr. Bush's somewhat chastened tone appeared to reflect a new White House strategy of admitting some errors to improve the chances of winning consensus on what he calls a new national "plan for victory."

The atmospherics of Mr. Bush's speech were also markedly different from his recent addresses on Iraq, which have been given in front of enthusiastic audiences, often on military bases. On Wednesday he spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations, before an audience that included many who were clearly skeptical, and some highly critical, of the strategy and Mr. Bush's competency.

Instead of the wild cheers he got last week at the United States Naval Academy, where he described changes in military strategy, there was polite and brief applause. The White House declined a request for Mr. Bush to follow council tradition and take questions at the end of his speech.

Mr. Bush was introduced by Richard N. Haass, the council's president and a senior official in the State Department during the president's first term. Since leaving the government Mr. Haass has termed the invasion of Iraq a "war of choice," a characterization the White House rejects.

Mr. Bush's words were tinged with caution, and an acknowledgment of how much remained to be done. "Corruption is a problem at both the national and local levels of the Iraqi government," he said, an issue he had rarely discussed. He also spoke of how militia groups had infiltrated security forces, "especially the Iraqi police."

Mr. Bush acknowledged that when reconstruction began, "our focus was on repairing and building large-scale infrastructure - such as electrical plans and large water treatment facilities." But, he said, "we found our approach was not meeting the priorities of the Iraqi people." The new projects became targets for terrorists, and contracts did not flow to Iraqi companies.

Now, he said, that has changed. "The terrorists and Saddamists have been able to slow progress, but they haven't been able to stop it," he said.

The decision to make huge projects the centerpieces for rebuilding came directly from Pentagon-controlled agencies that ran Iraq after the invasion. But even before the invasion, administration officials now concede, there were warnings from the State Department that smaller, more focused reconstruction projects had worked in other war-torn countries and might be more suitable for Iraq.

James Kunder, an assistant administrator at the United States Agency for International Development, which lost its argument for a small-is-better approach, said he did not think opposing views on reconstruction were actively stifled.

"That debate was a fair debate, it was an open debate, and truth be told, even though I might have gone a different way, those folks had a good argument," Mr. Kunder said.

Some experts said the president's new stance could be forming too late to do much good. "It was a much more realistic tone than I've ever seen," said Rick Barton, co-director of the post-conflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "This approach probably would have been fine when we were saying it one year ago, two years ago, but I just don't think the margins are as generous now."

Depending on how the president's words were parsed, it appeared that he might have been signaling an even larger shift, to a strategy in which America would focus on developing the Iraqi economy and pools of technical expertise in its ministries so Iraqis could carry on much of the reconstruction themselves.

An even more basic question is where the money for reconstruction would come from if the United States stopped paying for much of it. Iraqi and American officials have repeatedly conceded that little progress is likely until Iraq reduces its crippling subsidies for food and fuel. But after fatal rioting broke out in Yemen when the government there reduced subsidies, there may be little incentive to try the experiment in violence-torn Iraq.

Mr. Bush did not address this problem directly, saying only that the United States wanted to help "establish the institutions of a market economy." With his examples of what he called reconstruction progress in Najaf and Mosul, he also hinted at another key element of American strategy: giving more authority to provincial governments at the expense of the traditional center of power in Baghdad.

"It can take years of hard work to build a healthy civil society," Mr. Bush told the council's members. But, he said, Iraqis are "learning that democracy is the only way to build a just and peaceful society, because it's the only system that gives every citizen a voice in determining its future."

"the real concern in my opinion should be foreign forces infiltrating the country. this is a direct result of our lack of planning in terms of securing the borders. i think we should be making that a priority."

I am curious as to why you think that the borders are not getting more secure there?